Coal Ministry serves show-cause notice on 32 firms

A file photo of coal stocked at a mine in Khammam district of Andhra Pradesh. Coal blocks including those belonging to the Tatas, the Jindal Steel & Power and the Jayaswal group have been issued show cause notices. File photo

Government has already de-allocated 22 coal blocks and bank guarantees have been forfeited in case of another 36

The Coal Ministry is learnt to have issued show-cause notices to 32 companies for their failure to carry out any substantial progress in the development of the coal blocks allocated to them.

Officials in the Coal Ministry said that coal blocks, which have been issued show-cause notices, include those belonging to the Tata group, Jindal Steel and Power and Jayaswal group. The maximum number of notices was issued to the Jindal group, which was allocated a total of 11 blocks.

The decision to issue the notices was taken on the recommendations of an Inter-Ministerial Group set up by the government to look into the issue of failure of the various companies to develop the coal blocks, and weed out the unwanted and non-serious players.

The government has already de-allocated coal blocks in 22 cases, and bank guarantees have been fortified in the case of another 36 entities.

Officials said the action against the 32 companies was based purely on their failure to develop the coal blocks and there was no irregularity angle in the situation. The irregularities in coal block allocation was being probed by CBI which has already taken possession of nearly 730 files pertaining to allocation of coal blocks between 1993 to 2008.

Kudos to the journalists and the fourth estate for having needled the corrupt government to take some action even if it is too late. Every one in the mining sector knows about the monstrous corruption in the coal mines. A powerful mafia has even prevented the authorities to investigate the possibilities of underground gasification of coal and power generation thereon. This govt seems to exploit the ignorance of the even intelligentia in such important technical matters.

from:
subbanarasu divakaran

Posted on: May 15, 2013 at 01:33 IST

Unless or until, something hits the fan this govt does not want to do anything right in the first place. Always trying to fix things when something goes wrong and becomes public. The power crisis all over India was the indirect effect of the non development of these coal blocks. There are so many Russian billionaires because when the soviet union collapsed, some well connected people looted the states natural resources to become billionaires.